The following report from the Burgerville Workers Union states that management has come down against one pro-union worker of color since the end of the historic three day strike. To learn more about the strike, check out our audio report podcast here.

Burgerville chose to celebrate Valentine’s Day yesterday by retaliating against a union leader. Michelle, a worker at the Convention Center Burgerville who participated in our historic three day long strike, was just suspended by management for allegedly taking a chicken patty without permission.

Though retaliation against union members under trumped up “theft” accusations is a pattern at Burgerville, Michelle’s suspension demonstrates a particularly disturbing underside to that pattern. Along with Arsenio and Canaan, Michelle is the third pro-union worker of color to be fired by Convention Center management in as many weeks, a management which remains entirely white despite the diversity of the crew.

In the targeting of union members of color at the Convention Center, to put it bluntly, we see not only union busting but outright racism. These attacks on our jobs and our families by Burgerville corporate are not just against Burgerville workers, but rather against the rights and power of the Portland community as a whole.

The BVWU does not take this lightly. In addition to Arsenio, Canaan, and Michelle, two other pro-union workers at stores that went on strike have been fired or suspended for similar charges within the last few months. Though Burgerville claims to be an ethical, locally minded fast food company, their wages keep workers in poverty, and when those workers try to better their lives, they are threatened with firing.

In Michelle’s suspension, we see Burgerville perpetuating an atmosphere of fear and racism in order to fight the union, and we are currently in talks with our allies around Portland as well as our legal counsel as to how to best proceed. Please stay tuned – moments like these, when people’s jobs are on the line, are when we need our supporters the most.

In this audio report, we talked to someone with the Burgerville Workers Union (BVWU), which is a part of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a revolutionary anti-capitalist union founded in 1905. The Burgerville campaign went public in 2016, and in the past several years, has launched a series of strikes, job actions, pickets, and various campaigns in the face of an ongoing anti-union crackdown.

In response to this repression, members of BVWU have built relationships with various local groups and unions, who have in turn brought people to walk pickets lines and often serve free hamburgers outside of Burgerville stores during various job actions. To learn more about this back story, check out our previous podcast interviews with BVWU members here and here.

In this interview, we specifically talk about the recent three day strike launched by BVWU, which grew to include four stores in total who were involved in the strike. Over the course of three days, IWW members picketed stores, encouraged customers not to pay patronage to the business across the city, held rallies which were joined in solidarity with other unions, and also announced the “Boycott Burgerville” campaign.

While certainly not the first or only large scale fast-food worker strike, the Burgerville campaign is historic, and represents the growing capacity of rank-n-file workers to self-organize and take action where they are to fight back against their bosses and conditions in a rapidly gentrifying city.

On Saturday, February 3rd, members of the Burgerville Workers Union, (BVWU), a part of the revolutionary anti-capitalist labor union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), announced that a third and fourth store had officially joined the strike. Meanwhile, Burgerville Workers Union members also announced a public boycott of the store as pickets continued over the weekend. On Sunday, the union announced that it was ending its three day strike and that on Monday, workers would be returning to work, however the struggle would continue.